


Midnight Clear

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 2K Round-up Challenge, Christmas, Community: trope_bingo, M/M, Old West, POV Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:45:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Christmas celebration in Four Corners seen through Ezra's eyes. A fill for my Trope Bingo prompt "forbidden fruit".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Clear

Pinyon cones exploded in the fire with hissing pops, sparking more shrieks of joy as a cluster of children scooted away from a spray of embers peppering the hearth. Most of the children peeled away, hurtling themselves back into the crowd of celebrants packing the Grain Exchange, diminutive cyclones of undiminishable energy. Young Billy Travis paused as Olivia Greer grabbed another handful of cones from the basket and flung them into the fireplace, the pair laughing as they danced back again before also melting into the crowd of adults.

The piquant fragrance of burning pinyon mingled with the fresh scent of the evergreen boughs tacked to the walls, but the mix couldn't quite overpower the cloying sweetness of gingerbread, punch, and lavender water that hung heavy in the hot, still air. Ezra leaned against the wall near the side window, welcoming the chill drafts that penetrated ill-aligned boards.

A bark of familiar, rich-toned laughter drew Ezra's head around to see Buck carrying a large, round tray and following Inez like she was tugging a child's wheeled horse behind her on a string. Buck looked dashing tonight, his dark hair slicked down and a black ribbon tie gussying up his lavender shirt in place of his usual oversized wildrag. His face glowed with his considerable store of charm as he wove through the crowd in Inez's wake, taking time on his passage to greet most citizens of the female persuasion (under the age of forty years) either by name or with "darling," both pronounced with a breathy intimacy that left a trail of rosy cheeks behind him.

Buck Wilmington was an amazing man. If only he could be persuaded to focus all his innate charm and perseverance on a confidence game, Buck--and any partner he might have need of in pursuing such a skilled endeavor, naturally--could well reap monetary returns that would make any right-thinking man's eyes glow. Inexplicably, Buck seemed content rather with squandering his inborn talents on the ephemeral reward of short-lived feminine companionship.

Although he'd long ago resigned himself to Buck's peccadilloes, Ezra sighed at what Mother would term a scandalous waste of potential. He took a fortifying sip of single malt from his flask as compensation.

Big Joey Abrams struck up a Strauss waltz on his fiddle. It looked like a toy tucked under his fleshy jowls, but Joey wielded it with the virtuosity of Nathan with a knife. In moments, the other three members of the impromptu farmers' orchestra caught the beat and the bright-hued crowd calmed into a swirl of more graceful motion after the frenetic pace of a galop polka.

JD swung into view, clutching Casey like she was a railing across an icy slough and frowning down at his own feet as though unsure where they'd come from and why they were behaving like that. Casey, pretty as a cliff-rose with an ivory satin ribbon in her hair and a matching lace blouse, shook him until he looked up at her--just in time to catch her as she stumbled on her own skirt. Ezra swallowed a snort as they righted themselves in front of him with practiced accord and twirled off into the crowd wreathed in identical delighted smiles.

He glanced at Josiah, who caught his eye in shared amusement, lifting a tin mug in salute. Ezra nodded back, but lost his smile when Josiah quaffed, with apparent enjoyment, what must be that atrocious punch several of the women, led by Mrs. Conklin, had concocted and decreed must remain untouched by foul spirits. _Et tu_ , Josiah, he thought morosely, and sneaked another sip from his flask.

Josiah was seated on a bench with a child on either side of him and several others on the floor in a circle at his feet. Josiah lowered the mug and resumed his annual retelling of the story of the Nativity relocated to the Plains territories. A few adults sat nearby, attention split between watching the dancers and Josiah, heads alternately bobbing in time with the music and cocking to listen to Josiah's deep, purring voice.

A pair of Lilliputian dancers drew Ezra's attention back to the floor as young Master Billy twirled by in Miss Olivia's firm grip. Despite Olivia's having the advantage over Billy of several months in age, two inches of height, and her early years spent among thieves, felons, and reprobates, the apparent imbalance of power fazed neither of them. The moment Olivia had arrived with her mother to celebrate the Christmas season, and, staying with Mary Travis for the holiday, had met Billy, they'd become bosom-friends. They were responsible, he understood, for the abundance of paper chains festooning the Grain Exchange. Mary had apparently deduced the value of donating a large stack of colored paper and whipping up a bowl of paste to keep them gainfully occupied rather than letting them loose on the town to devise their own entertainment.

Olivia waved a hand as they waltzed past him; Ezra smiled and tipped his hat in return. Although Terry had managed to curb Olivia's pickpocketing ways in the eighteen months they'd lived in Bitter Creek, Ezra had been pleased to find Olivia's poker abilities were unblunted. Buck might waste his God-given talent for no earthly good, but Olivia showed promise of developing into an admirable young woman. Ezra had devoted an hour to the cause by giving her a rudimentary lesson in calculating pot odds in draw poker, for which she'd demonstrated a delightful quickness in picking up the basics.

Feeling cheered, his smile deepened as he caught sight of another of his fellow peacekeepers. Nathan stood out by dint of towering over most people in the room. He was at the edge of the dancers in the north-west corner across the room, his tall, lean body moving with the sinuous confidence he'd shown during the sword-fighting lessons he'd given Buck. Nathan looked different, somehow. It took a few moments of squinting for Ezra to realize Nathan was wearing a shirt that wasn't checkered, spotted, or plaid; instead, a solid aquamarine cotton that flattered him. Of course, he still wore one of his frumpy jackets over it, but at least it was his plain brown one. Satisfaction flooded Ezra with the reflection that he was at last having a beneficial effect on Nathan in at least this area of Ezra's own indisputable expertise.

His subtle salute with his flask aborted as he noticed Nathan's dance partner. Miss Clara was a newcomer in town, having arrived as assistant to the new sempstress who had taken over poor Miss Irene's business after her demise at the hands of the Pinkerton agent. He hadn't realized Nathan had struck up an acquaintance with Clara Lincoln, but he supposed it made sense that Nathan would accept advice from her in what to wear to the party rather than his finally seeing the value in listening to Ezra on sartorial matters. Ah, well, as long as someone was influencing him in the right direction!

He considered the girl, wondering if Rain had a serious rival. Clara was about twenty, a presentable young woman who was tall enough to look well-matched to Nathan's height. Her dress was simple but stylish, made of glazed cotton, an inexpensive but attractive material in a burgundy that brought out the warmth in her coloring. Next to Nathan's deftness, however, she moved with clunking awkwardness, and it seemed she was as timid with him as she'd appeared on the occasions Ezra had seen her in one of the shops or on the boardwalk. Her head wasn't lowered quite as far as it was whenever she passed townsfolk in the street, but her eyes were fixed somewhere around his collarbone. He was speaking to her with a gentle look, but, while she darted an occasional glance up, complete with shy smile, he spoke mostly to the top of her carefully coiffed head. Ezra grinned and looked away; Miss Rain, even at the distance of a day's ride, seemed unlikely to have much competition here.

His eyes widened as he saw even Vin was...well, attempting a waltz? Good Lord. First a poet, now a dancer. He took a long pull of whiskey and kept his unwavering gaze on Vin, ignoring with the ease of long practice the _tsking_ noise aimed in his direction from the vicinity of Mrs. Conklin. Vin was wearing his crimson shirt, so he was perhaps the most festive person in the room. Ezra stifled a laugh and looked at Vin's partner, half expecting to see the wizened crone for whom Vin had a peculiar soft spot; but, no, it was some young lady. A farmer's daughter, perhaps. She had the browned skin and fresh-faced liveliness of a girl who spent much of her waking time toiling for little compensation and who knew how to make the most of a gay interval.

Pity Vin tended to be something of a gentleman with the fairer sex. Since Buck was following Inez around and was likely only to get her door closed firmly in his face at the end of the evening, and JD and Casey hadn't progressed further into the realm of actual relations than young Billy and Olivia, Vin might be the most fortunate of them all this night. Not counting....

His eyes moved of their own accord to the one point in the room he'd spent the past hour avoiding. Two fair heads shining in the warm yellow lamplight atop slender, upright bodies, black linen and royal blue taffeta complementing each other; in sum, composing together a picture of aligned beauty and power. The unofficial male and female heads of the town: one who wielded the sword, the other the pen. Ezra grimaced at the fanciful drivel and closed his hand hard over the flask in his pocket.

Mary's eyes shone as she looked up at Chris, and her mouth, damp and red--from rouge? or some other cause?--was open in a laugh. Happiness lit her beauty from within like a beacon in a lighthouse during a storm.

Yet it was all too easy to look away from her.

Chris's unrelieved black of shirt and vest--unlike the rest of them, he'd had the sense, and lack of concern about propriety, to remove his jacket--over his usual black pants made him the ideal frame for her, but instead of fading to the background, his dynamic presence dominated. His hand on her waist a sure clasp, they waltzed with a polished insouciance as though they'd been dancing through life together for years.

In abrupt, synchronous movement, both of them turned and looked down, blond heads poised like mirrored marionettes. Ezra followed their eyes down just as Billy and Olivia circled into view from behind Mary's skirt, clumsily aping Chris and Mary's grace, both of the eight-year-olds beaming up at the glittering couple smiling down at them.

Ezra blinked his eyes away. He pushed away from the wall and crossed to the door, slipping outside without a backward glance. As he shut the door on the heat, light, and music, he paused to let his eyes adjust to the dark, sighing in pleasure at the waft of cool air on his cheeks. He pulled out his flask and took a proper swallow, then a second mouthful as a toast to Mrs. Conklin and her one-woman Christian Temperance Union. His flask was becoming light; he shook it, listening to the homey slosh, then considered the merits of seeking a top-up, and possibly some solace, at the Saloon. It was open, of course, with dour Buster tending the bar. Ezra rocked back and forth for a moment with indecision, but sighed, shaking his head. The few customers he'd find there would undoubtedly just be the regulars, the jaded drunks who went to the Saloon to drink their miserable lives away and posed neither challenge nor promise of pots worth his time.

What he needed was distraction. Diversion. His gaze moved inexorably to Digger Dave's, across the alley from the Saloon. His hand tightened around the flask. Diversion he could certainly find at Digger Dave's. It awaited any man with a particular appetite and an eye alert enough to discern the truth beneath the ruffled skirts and skimpy bodices of a certain few of the fine-feathered courtesans who congregated there: ones with flatter chests and more bulk between their legs than the usual of their kind.

His compatriots avoided Digger Dave's, for the most part, from, he'd long ago concluded, a shared disinclination both to have to acknowledge that truth and to sample it. He'd actually seen Buck walk in one day early in their acquaintance, saw Buck look around with his bright gaze, including a glance at Ezra at the corner table, then his eyes flitting over the ladies. He'd watched Buck's eyes pause on one of them, blink, then drop to the gouged, dusty floor as he turned and walked out. He'd wager a goodly amount of gold that Buck had never returned, confining himself to the Saloon and its uncomplicated pleasures instead.

Nathan knew, of course, since he treated the townsfolk, and courtesans sometimes required more regular treatment than other folk; but Nathan would never mention what happened behind the doors of his clinic. Nathan never drank at Digger Dave's, either, holding its secret close, as did Josiah. As for Vin, with his skill in quiet observation, he'd possibly known even before their small group had drawn together and become lawkeepers, though Vin seemed free of that particular proclivity and confined his drinking and card playing to the Saloon with the others.

Ezra suspected JD hadn't developed the eye to see the truth before him yet. JD, he was sure, would've mentioned his discovery, if only in a hushed, amazed whisper. Ezra smiled, feeling a twisted mix of bitterness and affection. JD would no more act on his knowledge if he had it than Nathan, but JD couldn't have kept such a secret entirely to himself for all the tea in China.

Chris, on the other hand.... Chris knew, had likely discerned the truth on his first visit as quickly as Buck. Chris never spoke of it, but, besides Ezra, Chris was the only one of their fellowship who didn't avoid Digger Dave's or act as though the town's other saloon didn't exist. Observing Chris's occasional repeat visits had been Ezra's first intimation that Chris and he might be more alike than they appeared at first blush.

Shrugging away another tinge of melancholy, Ezra turned his back on that potential source of distraction and wove his way into the dark, narrow alley between the Grain Exchange and the livery. Tonight, spending himself in a willing body wouldn't help, not past the sweated heat of reaching climax in a room shaded and locked tight from all eyes; even the thrill of possible calamity that attended all such assignations, even in Digger Dave's discreet surroundings, wasn't sufficient appeal tonight. Truth be told, it hadn't been for the past several months.

He'd become increasingly more attached to the intimacy of familiarity. The new truth he wrestled with was his dependency on a certain touch, rather than any touch; a particular set of scents surrounding him and a specific voice in his ear, while a distinctive heartbeat thrummed under his cheek.

He stopped to lean against the wall of the Grain Exchange at the end of the alley, peering up at a sky spread above him like a dream of riches. Mother might be right in her contention he'd become too settled here, that he was walking a tightrope of danger. Not a fear of being discovered and run out of town; if such an event occurred, he was confident he'd be ushered out with dignity and regret, not tar and feathers or with the threat of a noose. He didn't believe it would ever come to that point, however, sure enough of his companions now to trust that, if they found it out, they would guard his truth as carefully as they did their awareness of the secret doings, the errant lives being pursued, within Digger Dave's unobtrusive clapboard walls.

No, his fear was...smaller than that, and so much bigger that he wasn't sure he had its entire scope. The need for one hard body against his, one voice in his ear, one presence had become compelling. That one known set of callused fingers alone these days could drive his body to frenzy and had kept him out of other beds the past several months: There lay the true danger. Needing a singular touch to lift him to the heights of passion and release rather than seeking mere satiation of his body was a weakness he had to admit to whenever he attempted to separate himself from his need, and failed. He'd never courted the sensation of drowning in tenderness; never considered such a state either necessary or desirable, yet he found himself now yearning for it like an opiate.

He traced patterns in the stars overhead, picking out the bright beacon of the North Star. Tonight would be a good night for travel, if one had that need. He swept his eyes from one dark horizon to another. Mother was north-east in Saint Louis; San Francisco lay to the west, with its myriad lights and people, a multitude of opportunities for both gain and diversion; while the north-west--he tilted his head to ponder that section of pitch-blackness--was an uncharted wilderness waiting to be explored and exploited by a man clever enough to judge odds and know when to cut his losses.

Here he stood, the livery at his left. A matter of minutes to saddle his horse, a few more to retrieve his always packed and ready saddlebags from his room, and he could be gone before the dancing beyond the wall at his shoulder, the music a swirl of sound seeping into the night, ended. His hand trembled as he took a final drink from his flask, emptying it. A cold night, but he had a warm coat and gloves. All it took to free himself was a clear eye and the will to act.

A faint noise sounded behind him and he whirled, lifting his arm and closing his fingers around his derringer at its hard thump into his palm. The steps didn't falter and the face that emerged from the shadows made him blink in surprise.

Chris didn't stop until he was close enough for Ezra to smell the fine scent of sweat under the bath house soap.

"Good Lord. What are you doing out here?" His voice sounded surly in his own ears, but his heart was still thumping wildly and he had sweat of his own on his hands.

Chris's teeth gleamed in the starlight. "Wanna move that peashooter out of my ribs?"

"Hmpf." He pushed the gun back up his sleeve until it clicked in place, then straightened his jacket. "You of all people should know better than to sneak up on a man in the dark."

When he looked up, Chris was standing close enough to touch and lifting his arms to cage Ezra between them, hands pressing flat against the wall on either side of Ezra's shoulders. Ezra's nose twitched at the smokiness clinging to Chris's shirt.

"I should know better than to do a lot of things." Chris's murmur wafted warm air against Ezra's neck as he leaned in and trailed kisses along Ezra's jaw from his ear to his mouth.

Ezra's eyes closed involuntarily as he tipped his head back against the wall and lifted his hands to clutch Chris's arms, fingers closing on warm cotton and hard muscles.

"Why aren't you still in there twirling Mary around the floor?"

Chris lifted his mouth from Ezra's neck, but spoke against his mouth. "Needed air. And I saw you leave. Thought maybe you were looking for--" He teased Ezra's lips apart with his tongue, then slipped it inside.

Ezra sank into the kiss before resting his head back again. "Looking for--?"

Chris leaned his weight against him, sliding a leg between Ezra's thighs and rubbing against the growing hardness at Ezra's groin.

"A different kind of celebration."

His blood was pulsing under his skin with the driving power of a locomotive. His cock was too hard to ignore now, his pants a painful constriction, but Chris dropped a hand and unbuttoned Ezra's fly with practiced quickness.

"Chris, for Lord's sake!" He sent a frantic look down the alley and another over the corral at the back of the livery, finding their quiet stillness only barely reassuring.

Chris gave him a sly grin, then leaned past him to grab a folded burlap bag from atop a barrel at the corner. He pulled Ezra deeper into the shadowed secrecy of the alley. Ezra's pants were open, icy air penetrating, but Chris's hand, big and hard and rough-skinned, pulled him free of his pants and encased him with warmth, his touch so damned sure and gentle it fucking hurt. He watched as Chris dropped the burlap onto the ground, then knelt on it. Caught in the familiar sense of drowning and utter helplessness, he couldn't move from his lean against the wall. Its solidity a welcome support, he planted his feet apart and curled one hand around Chris's head, fingers threading through the short hair, and the other around Chris's shoulder.

Chris's hand and tongue surrounded and bathed his cock, one or the other or both together a constant guard against the cold, while Chris's other hand slipped inside to cradle Ezra's sac. Ezra's eyes slid closed as he hardened fully in Chris's mouth, to Chris's sweet sucking of the head, teasing the foreskin back with his tongue, then laving the length before engulfing it again.

He forced his eyes open and stared up at the glory of the heavens arching above, which smeared to a field of undifferentiated lights as Chris's head established a back-and-forth rhythm that Ezra's blood matched in wild, free pulses. The smell of piss and horse filled his nose, and anyone could come along, anybody at all from a wandering drunk to one of the ladies seeking the outhouse. Even Mrs. Conklin could come upon them, exposed and undeniable in their wanton abandon, yet not even that cold, lurid image could douse his heated excitement.

Because they shared this thrill, too, he and Chris: occasionally, like a treat, veering from the careful discretion they usually blanketed themselves in to court the possibility of discovery. Chris alone could draw him to be a true gambler, flinging himself at chance with heady, appalling joy and never regretting it even after his blood quieted and he was in his right mind again.

Chris, he'd learned, had an acute sense of hearing and never fully abandoned his awareness of what was happening in his vicinity. For the first time in his life, here in this pisspot town, Ezra had become used to entrusting not only his life itself, but his entire wellbeing to another man, which was the greatest danger of all.

He cupped Chris's head with care as it bobbed at his crotch at an intoxicating pace, careful not to clutch Chris too hard, but holding onto Chris to steady his own shaking legs and because he needed as much of Chris in his hands as he could have at any given moment. He muttered imprecations under his breath as his blood beat hotly in his belly and cock until he came on a long, harsh shudder as Chris's hand tightened around his balls and the tip of his finger pressed into Ezra's hole.

Chris stilled, only his mouth moving as he drank Ezra's seed, then he released Ezra's cock into his hand and tucked it away, closing the fabric but leaving it unbuttoned as he used Ezra's grip to get to his feet. Ezra put his hands on either side of Chris's face and pulled him close for a long kiss, reveling in the taste of his seed on Chris's tongue, then tucked his face against Chris's neck as he got his breathing under control.

"You're crazy," he said, voice low and tart when he finally pulled back enough to button up his pants. "And you make me crazy right along with you."

"Plum loco, both of us." Chris pulled out his flask and took a long swallow, then offered it to Ezra, who tried to palm it after drinking, but Chris plucked it away from him and tucked it back into the pocket of the black jacket he'd donned.

Equilibrium restored, Ezra reached a hand toward Chris's crotch, but Chris caught his wrist.

"Not now. I ain't rough as you. I prefer my pleasure in bed." He spoke on a breath of laughter, low and gravelly, still riding the edge of wildness that lifted him from unsettlingly attractive to the most colossal hazard Ezra had ever known or was likely ever to know.

Ezra snorted, muscles relaxing in the aftermath and in the reassurance of Chris's dynamic presence. As his blood stopped pounding in his ears, all he could hear was the faint polka, a cricket close by, the distant hoot of an owl, and the occasional stirring of a horse. They'd escaped detection once more. He felt alive, all his senses as sharp as the stars overhead; and content, now, with this life he'd unexpectedly found in a dusty town in the middle of nowhere with a man who was all the challenges he could ever hanker for wrapped up in one.

"Heading out to your ranch?" The ranch was where they were freest, and where they usually confined their times together.

Chris was pulling his hat up by the strings and settling it on his head. Ezra could just see the shake of his head.

"Gotta go back inside for awhile longer, but I'll be heading to my room in an hour or so for the night." Chris's eyes reflected the light of the rising moon as he tilted his head, waiting.

Ezra grinned. "Mother always did insist her lessons in sneaking would pay off handsomely for me one day."

Chris huffed a quiet laugh. As he took a step away, his hand brushed Ezra's, pressing the cold iron of a key into his hand. Then Chris turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness of the alley with long strides, weirdly silent without the spurs he'd removed for the dance.

Ezra picked up the burlap sack and placed it back on the barrel, scuffing the dirt until he reckoned it wouldn't look much different from the rest of the narrow alley in the light of day. He glanced around once more, then meandered his way toward the back stairs to Chris's room. A last look up at the sky before he went inside drew his eyes not to the guiding light of the North Star, but to the Big Dipper, a happy reminder that Chris always kept a bottle of the best whiskey in his room. A glass of Highland Pure Rye and his pack of cards to pass the time in warmth and comfort; perhaps he'd borrow Chris's razor and shave when he washed up.

Better than a cold camp and a journey into the dark without destination, all on the false hope he could escape from this trap he knew he was held fast in, which was all right because Chris was held fast, too.


End file.
